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Autobiographical Dictation, 26 June 1908 ❉ Textual Commentary

Source document.

Times      Facsimile of the New York Times (the original clippings that Hobby transcribed are now lost), 26 June 1908, 1: ‘DOUBLE . . . to appear.’ (237.22–238.9); ‘ARRESTS . . . to descend.’ (238.12–25).
TS1      Typescript, leaves numbered 2530–33, made from Hobby’s notes and Times and revised.

TS1, as revised by Clemens, is the only authoritative source for the dictated portion of this dictation. For the articles from the New York Times we follow the original newspaper; the minor variants that Hobby inadvertently introduced when transcribing the clippings have not been reported.

Dictated at Innocence at Homeexplanatory note,textual note June 26, 1908

Copies of twotextual note clippings from papers with Mr. Clemens’s comments—Mr. Clemens speaks of Grover Cleveland’s death.

We entered into occupation of this new house eight days agoexplanatory note.textual note

In an earlier chapter I have told how Clara and I kept distressing things from Mrs. Clemens’s knowledge by a kindly and justifiable system of lying. In that chapter I also introduced a sketch entitled “Was It Heaven or Hell?” in which a similar system of lying was used by a dying mother and a dying daughter and their attendants to keep the condition of each from becoming known to the other. I published that true story in a magazineexplanatory note, and approved the deceptions practised. As a consequence, I received letters from many offensively pious persons severely disapproving of me and my morals. But my reform was not achieved, and to me, therefore, the following incident is deeply pathetic, and will be so to the reader of this page fifty years from now, if I know human nature:


DOUBLE BLOW FOR FATHER explanatory note.


Child Killed, He Hides Death from His Sick Wife to Prevent Her Death, Too.

Patrick McDermott hurried home to his apartment at 2,487 Second Avenue from his work last evening a little earlier than usual, for his wife was sick and he knew that he must help his fifteen-year-old daughter Anna prepare the supper. He turned into 126th Street, walking rapidly, but stopped when he saw an ambulance drawn up to the curb outside of the tenement at 206 East 126th Street.

A sudden fright seized the father and he pushed his way through the throng of children, and through the long hallway saw the white-coated ambulance surgeon in the back yard. McDermott ran through the hall and looked at the limp figure over which the surgeon was kneeling.

It was his daughter Anna, who had fallen from the fire escape of Mrs. Edley Craig’s flat on the fifth floor, where the little girl had been visiting Mrs. Craig’s children. The sight of his dead daughter crazed the father and two policemen had all they could do to hold him. Dr. Bennett of Harlem Hospital administered to [begin page 238] the father, who was suffering from the effects of heat as well as grief. It was some time before the man became calm enough to talk intelligently. Then he told the physician of the sick wife at home, and declared that to break to her the news of Anna’s death would kill her. Dr. Bennett said he would take the child’s body to the police station instead of taking it home, and he did so.

McDermott, trying to conceal all signs of his grief, went home to tell his wife that Anna had gone to spend the night with friends. He declared piteously last night that he did not know what he could tell his wife this morning when the child failed to appear.

Here is another item which will still be of interest fifty years from now, and still be as competent then to exasperate the reader as it is to-day:


ARRESTS IN BALLOON CASE explanatory note.


Two Vermonters Accused of Shooting at Mr. Glidden’s Big Craft.

BRATTLEBORO, Vt., June 25.—Charged with assaulting Charles J. Glidden of Boston while Glidden was traveling over Brattleboro in a balloon with Leo Stevens of New York last Friday, William Murphy, aged 30, and Charles Rigaman, aged 33 years, of this city, were placed under arrest to-night by Deputy Sheriff Myron P. Davis. The complaint is made by Attorney General Clark C. Fitts, who gave his attention to the matter.

The balloon Boston was hit by a bullet on Friday. According to Mr. Glidden two bullets were fired, apparently from a white barn. The time of the shots and the exact location of the balloon were noted by the aeronauts. One bullet grazed the balloon, leaving a scar. The second passed completely through it, and the balloonists had to descend.

It is my belief that no crime, however cowardly and however shameless and cruel, can be imagined which there isn’t somebody in Christendom willingtextual note to commit. It seems to me that an attempt to murder an aeronaut, with the risk of horribly mutilating him first, is as mean and vile and cruel a crime as can be imagined. I am opposed to harsh punishments, yet I think that if it can be proven that these two would-be assassins are really the ones who made the attempt, they ought to be dismembered while still alive and then boiled in oil.


A great man is lost to the country; a great man and great citizen, the greatest citizen we had and the only statesman left to us, after the death of Senator Hoar of Massachusettsexplanatory note. I speak of Grover Cleveland, twice Presidenttextual note of the United States, who died yesterdayexplanatory note. He was a very great Presidenttextual note, a man who not only properly appreciated the dignity of his high office but added to its dignity. The contrast between President Cleveland and the present occupant of the White House is extraordinary; it is the contrast between an archangel and the Missing Linktextual note. Mr. Cleveland was all that a president ought to be; Mr. Roosevelt is all that a president ought not to be—he covers the entire ground.

It is said that Mr. Cleveland has left but little for his family to live on. His widow [begin page 239] ought to have a life pension of twenty-five thousand dollars, but she will not get itexplanatory note. If she were the bastard of a bounty-jumpertextual note and had a vote to sell, Roosevelt and Congress would tumble and scramble over each other in their eagerness to confer thetextual note pension and buy that vote.

Textual Notes Dictated at Innocence at Home, June 26, 1908
  Innocence at Home, ●  Redding, Innocents at Home (TS1-SLC) 
  two ●  2 (TS1) 
  We . . . ago. ●  We . . . ago.  (TS1-SLC) 
  willing ●  who is willing (TS1-SLC) 
  President ●  president (TS1) 
  President ●  president (TS1) 
  the Missing Link ●  a monkey. the Missing Link.  (TS1-SLC) 
  bounty-jumper ●  bounty-jumper (TS1-SLC) 
  the ●  a the  (TS1-SLC) 
Explanatory Notes Dictated at Innocence at Home, June 26, 1908
 

title Innocence at Home] Clemens’s first name for his Redding house; in October he decided to call it Stormfield: see the Autobiographical Dictation of 6 October 1908.

 

We entered into occupation of this new house eight days ago] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 17 April 1908, note at 221.17–19.

 

In an earlier chapter I have told . . . I published that true story in a magazine] The sketch, published in Harper’s Monthly in December 1902, was inserted into the Autobiographical Dictation of 4 June 1906. Clemens also touches on the subject of “unveracity” in the dictation of 6 June 1906, and describes Clara’s struggle to keep things from Olivia in the dictation of 7 June 1906 ( AutoMT2 , 80–108, 506 n. 83.16–17).

 

DOUBLE BLOW FOR FATHER] The article that begins here was published in the New York Times on 26 June.

 

ARRESTS IN BALLOON CASE] This article, like the one inserted earlier in the dictation, appeared in the New York Times on 26 June.

 

Senator Hoar of Massachusetts] George Frisbie Hoar (1826–1904), a graduate of Harvard University and Law School, served Massachusetts in Congress for thirty-five years, in 1869–77 as a representative and in 1877–1904 as a senator. He championed the civil rights of black men and worked for the New England Woman’s Suffrage Association; and as an anti-imperialist he supported self-determination for Puerto Ricans and Filipinos. Moreover, he staunchly opposed the spoils system and promoted merit-based government appointments.

 

Grover Cleveland, twice President of the United States, who died yesterday] Cleveland, Democratic president in 1885–89 and 1893–97, died on 24 June at age seventy-one. Clemens was one of the “mugwumps” who voted for him in 1884, when he defeated Republican James G. Blaine. Clemens talks about the election, and about his cordial encounters with Cleveland and his wife, in the Autobiographical Dictations of 24 January, 5 March, and 6 March 1906 ( AutoMT1 , 315–19, 385–92, 602 n. 385.35–36).

 

It is said that Mr. Cleveland has left but little for his family to live on . . . but she will not get it] On 28 June the New York Times announced that Congress was expected to authorize a $5,000 annual pension for Frances Cleveland, the late president’s popular wife. (Similar pensions had been granted to the widows of presidents who had not seen military service; widows of former soldiers received military pensions.) Although more than one newspaper reported that Cleveland “died a comparatively poor man,” he left his wife a sizable inheritance, and she refused the pension that Congress offered her (“Pension for Mrs. Cleveland,” New York Times, 28 June 1908, 1; “Few Presidents Rich,” Washington Post, 11 July 1908, 11, reprinting the Brooklyn Eagle; Watson 2012, 369).